Project Cars developer Slightly Mad Studios is about to deliver something that is simultaneously fast and furious. During The Game Awards tonight, Fast & Furious star Michelle Rodriguez announced a new game in the franchise is coming next year. It’s called Fast & Furious: Crossroads, and it features racing but also a lot of the dramatic shootout action fans have come to expect from the series.
Fast & Furious: Crossroads launches May 2020 for PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. And if you’re keeping track at home, the ninth movie in the film series also debuts in the U.S. that same month. Hollywood studio Universal is working with Slightly Mad and publisher Bandai Namco Entertainment Europe on the game. And the companies showed Crossroad in a trailer that you can watch above.
“Fast & Furious remains one of the most beloved franchises of all time and continues to innovate in extraordinary ways,” Universal games and digital platforms boss Jim Molinets said. “Fast & Furious: Crossroads is an authentic experience that stays true to the series by amplifying the signature elements that fans love – a star-studded cast, high-stakes story, over-the-top action, deep family ties and, of course, fast cars.”
For its part, Slightly Mad said that it is excited to work on the game.
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“As huge fans of the franchise, it’s an honor to be able to expand the Fast & Furious franchise into the world of video games with a brand new story, the introduction of a new crew with ties to beloved characters, and iconic and stunning set pieces,” Slightly Mad chief creative officer Andy Tudor said. “With Easter eggs throughout for fans and an intense multiplayer experience, Fast & Furious: Crossroads is a thrilling collision course that puts players behind the wheel.”
Fast and Furious: Crossroads is still a movie-license game
Fast and Furious: Crossroads doesn’t look good. I’m just gonna get that out of the way because it’s the truth. The trailer looks rough. Crossroads is still months away. And it may not matter how it looks if it plays well. But based on the footage we’ve seen so far, its visuals look like a last-generation game.
The cars look good, but everything else has looks like a cheap Xbox 360 game. Character models are stiff both in their static appearance and especially in motion. There’s a moment when one of the main characters jumps from a car to a train and kind of floats upward awkwardly to land in the right spot.
And this is a familiar kind of bad. It looks like a movie-license game. And while they are more rare these days, they once had a reputation as the worst-of-the-worst games. The trouble was often that developers would get the license for a big movie and then have to turn around a game in a tight time window in order to launch alongside a movie.
Well, Crossroads launches right alongside Fast & Furious 9.
Again, I’m not making any final judgments because I haven’t played the game. But I hope Slightly Mad can pull this off.
